As the U.S. Supreme Court enters into the new year, the justices are preparing to confront a series of hot-button issues in the second half of what is widely viewed as a historic term. Here are 5 Legal Fights You Must Follow in 2020.
Since the start of the term in October, the court has already heard arguments on a number of high profile cases such as on the second amendment, the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the deportation of lawful permanent residents convicted of felonies, and whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to LGBTQ workers.
Some Supreme Court fights to keep an eye on in 2020 include cases on Louisiana abortion restrictions, state aid for religious schools, the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and President Donald Trump’s bid to shield his financial records.
The fight to stop the House and a New York investigation from having access to the president’s financial records reached the high court last month when the Supreme Court agreed to take on Trump’s appeals of the three subpoena-related cases. The cases present important separation of power questions to the justices.
One of the cases stems from a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee to Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA to hand over eight years of financial records involving Trump and his business in April as part of its probe into allegations about the president’s financial statements.
In a separate House-related case, the House Financial Services and House Intelligence committees issued subpoenas to two banks—Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp.—asking them to turn over Trump’s financial documents. The House committee investigations are unrelated to the impeachment proceedings.
Meanwhile, the third case centers on a subpoena issued by District Attorney of New York County Cyrus Vance Jr. in a criminal investigation in Manhattan. Vance is investigating hush money allegedly paid to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign—adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied the affairs and any other wrongdoing.
According to a court order in December, the cases will be scheduled for argument in March (pdf).
These cases have “a lot of important legal issues about the power of the courts, Congress, and the states to target the financial records of the president, but [they] also [have] a lot of current political relevance, because [they] involve the current president in the midst of the run-up to the 2020 election,” Tseytlin said.

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